Organizational Memory
Community card, MethodKit for Memory & Reminiscence
Card 11 of 66 · MethodKit for Memory & Reminiscence
  • ThemeCustomers & Market
  • CardCard 11 of 66
  • Questions5 to explore
Customers & Market

Community

Fans, engaged customers & local supporters

The people who care most about what you do are a form of organizational memory worth tending deliberately.

A community can mean a formal user group or something much looser: a handful of advocates, a local network, a group that shows up to your events year after year. Whatever shape it takes, it represents knowledge about who your work matters to and why.

What often goes unrecorded is the texture of those relationships: who the connectors are, what motivated people to get involved, what they actually talk about when they gather. That kind of knowledge is useful for anyone trying to understand the real reach of the organization.

Write down what the community looks like, how it stays connected, and who inside the organization maintains those relationships. Even a rough map is more useful than nothing when someone new needs to understand the ecosystem.

What to capture

For this part of the company brain, what is worth writing down and keeping current. The goal is not a complete archive but a living record that new people can read and returning people can trust.

Community shape

A description of who your community is and how they relate to the organization, whether that is formal members, engaged followers, or recurring collaborators.

Key connectors

The individuals, inside or outside the organization, who play an outsized role in holding the community together.

How it stays alive

The rituals, touchpoints, and spaces, whether digital or in-person, that keep the community connected to each other and to you.

What they care about

A note on the themes, concerns, or interests that animate the community, drawn from what they actually say and do.

Questions to explore

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

  1. Who are the people most engaged with what we do, and how did they find us?

  2. Are there individuals who act as connectors or champions within the community?

  3. How does the community stay in contact with us and with each other?

  4. What do community members seem to value most about the organization?

  5. What happens to community relationships when a key internal person moves on?

Things to notice

  • Community knowledge is relational. It lives in personal connections, not mailing lists, and those connections do not transfer automatically when the person who held them leaves.
  • Engaged communities can feel more robust than they are. A small number of active people can mask how thin the broader relationship actually is.
  • Defining the community too narrowly leaves out people who care about the work but do not fit the obvious profile.